Firstly, "the physical laws" from your quote, are the invention of man's mind. The laws of motion attributable to Newton are Newtons rational, empirical, systematic approach to understanding motion. They were not God's laws that God gave to Newton. We see an order in life and the universe if we are trained or conditioned to see this order. But, can it be understood from a systematic, empirical thought process.
Now see. I really hate that argument. Because it's not true, is it? Humanity hasn't created the laws of physics. We've observed them. Science didn't get together one day and say "You know what would be fantastic...Gravity!!!" No, it is a natural force that we have named Gravity. And if it is a natural force, and God created nature, then indeed Gravity is all thanks to God. Not humanity. Physical Laws are not part of our imagination. They are observed facts.
To date, no it has not been understood. Otherwise, we would have not generated so many deeper questions. Does the universe obey your so called physical laws, or are your laws only relevant to what you can observe. They are certainly not applicable in the realm of sub-atomic physics.
We're not talking about the behaviour of particles. We're talking about light. But yes, what we can observe about the universe can be understood by a logical mind. More than that, Christian tradition and even the Bible says so. It is indeed this Christian understanding of an understandable and ordered universe that gave birth to modern science. Let's keep that in mind. Christianity isn't turning to science to explain deeper meanings, on the contrary. Many Christians are turning away from science so as to not have to struggle with it's implications.
I know that astrophysics now believes only about 7% of the universe is visible. Dark matter and dark energy account for the rest. Since we cannot detect or measure this dark matter, does it obey the puny physical laws of motion. Do black holes, where LIGHT DOES NOT ESCAPE, obey the laws of Newtonian physics? What laws? I think it may be a greater mystery than it was in Newton's day. You must agree.
Of course I don't agree. It's a fallicious argument. "Because Dark Matter at the moment is inexplicable, all other physics is inexplicable." That's just silly.
Additionally, Black Holes are a favourite of mine. I've been studying them for a while. You're saying that because they don't obey Newtons laws, that this proves you right. But again you've used an incredibly fallicious line of reasoning. Physics is observable facts about the universe. Obviously as our ability to observe the universe improves, so does our understanding of physics. This does NOT mean that physics then is rubbish. It does not mean that because something believed in the past needs to be amended, that it no longer matters. The new understanding does not throw out or do away with the old one. It builds on it.
That's where so many people who do not understand science or scientific process fall down. They argue that because something new arises, nothing can be true, much as you have just done.
But our ability to understand is increasing. Black holes are the perfect example. Science predicted them. We took our understanding of the Laws of Physics, applied them to a model of reality, loe and behold..this strange phenomenon occured. We got black holes. It took years to then actually see one. Does this mean science is baloney, and simply creates its own reality around itself as you are implying? No it's the opposite isn't it? Science seeks to understand the universe, and is doing quite a good job at it.
In the second part of your statement, you said "light is the key to exploring the issue". How do you know that light is the key? Where did you get this notion from? I am lost at this point of the statement. Light is electromagnetic radiation, visible light an incredibly small part of this massive spectrum. An almost neglible part. We understand light as a flow of photons. What exactly is a photon, a wave-particle duality. Science experiences difficulty in understanding this of course. It has two behaviours at once.
Let's not resort to sophistry. Remember the origional post.
LordsLily said:
have been challenged by someone, if creationism is real and the world and universe is only 6000 years old, then how come the light we are seeing from distant stars is many many years older.
In the debate of young earth creationism. Light is most certainly the key. It brings me back to the crux of my position which again, you have left unchallenged.
Or how a photon behaves in the proximity of dark matter, say. Does light enable man to understand the universe? Billions of galaxies, each galaxy contains a billion stars and an unknown number of other celestial bodies (comets, meteorites, etc). Newton would have been deeply stunned at these statistics. In fact, the better the telescope the more we find. Do you think this will at some point stop. We have been discovering galaxies non-stop for decades. How I ask does light figure as a key to this.
You seem to really like Newton. Maybe you would be interested in studying a more modern, and certainly more relevant physicist? you know, bring your argument up to date?
I fail to see your point though. Indeed I feel the more galaxies we discover, the stronger my position becomes. As we see items further and further away, the longer they must have existed.
Thirdly, you say that the light from the Andromeda Galaxy takes X amount of time to arrive here. How do we know this? I thought that this was an assumption. I am not aware that science has been able to prove this. What lies between us and the Andromeda Galaxy, remember light is electromagnetic radiation, we cannot see what may lie between us and the Andromeda Galaxy. Be careful the textbook you read this from may end up where every other textbook ends up in time, in the rubbish bin.
Just because you don't know that science has big machines that can measure light and lasers ect ect doesn't mean we don't have them. Did you also know we've been able to teleport particles? Of course Newton would have said impossible, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been accomplished. And again, appealing to the fact that science gets better at understanding physics, is no argument for abandoning physics all together.
You may well be aware that physics also hypothesises that we may live in but one dimension of multi-dimensional universes. If this is true, how does this affect Quantum Mechanics. How does it affect the so called constant of light.?
Well I would say the first mistake here is that you've taken hypothetical physics and put it in the same basket as proven physics. Who knows what effect string theory, or quantum loop theory, or ribbon theory may all do to dimensional understanding. Of course you may as well ask what effect time travel has on light.
There is currently an experiment in your country where a particle collider is being used in an attempt to discover the magical "gravitron". One of the holy grails of science. The hyporthetical gravitron will give man the reason for gravity.
We're from the same country.
The only problem is, the leading scientist theorises is that the gravitron, the moment it is created, slips into another dimension. Please explain how light is the key? I truly don't understand what you mean by that
Simple...I'm not talking about, nor ever have been talking about how the universe functions. I've been talking about time. Specifically, how much time has past since God created everything. Now I appreciate you've gotten emotional over this, but let's not drudge up nonsense to avoid the issue raised. Put away all the terminology that you've thrown about. All you've done is convolute your position beneath a shallow pool a words.
The issue we're discussing is Young Earth Creationism. Your primary defence of it so far has been, we can't possibly know the speed of light, therefore everything in creation is perfectly capable of having existed for 6000 years.
Well I'm afraid not, sorry. We have the speed of light, and I even allowed for your need for it not to be concrete. I have said that even presuming reasonable variances you're still going to be over the 6000 year mark. You're saying that numbers in the billions need to be reduced to 6000. There's simply no reason for that. Your dislike of science doesn't reduce it to an inept level where it has nothing of value to say.
